Revenge Tragedy Flashcards
Genre
Term introduced in 1900
Series of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays from 1580-1620
Conventions of revenge tragedy
Ghost of murdered victim prompts revenge
Metatheatricality
Madness
Murder
Revenge Tragedy - Key ideas
Set abroad
Retributive private or public justice
Revenge Tragedy - Key texts
Kyd - Spanish Tragedy Marlowe - Jew of Malta Webster - The White Devil Middleton - Changeling Ford - 'Tis Pity She's a Whore Shakespeare - Hamlet
Thomas Kyd
Merchant Taylor known by Jonson, Marlowe and Heywood
Accused of atheism
Key works: Spanish Tragedy - REVIVED GENRE BASED ON ROMAN PRECEDENTS
The Spanish Tragedy - key figures
Hieronimo and Isabella (parents of:)
Horatio (brother of the dead:)
Andrea (lover of:)
Bel-Imperia (who seeks revenge on his killers:)
Balthazar (Portuguese prince)
Lorenzo (brother of B-I)
Pendringano - b-i’s man (deceitful and hung for horatio’s death)
The Spanish Tragedy - key themes
Revenge Love - paternal (hieronimo's monologues) Deception Metatheatricality (masque) Structure - chorus of revenge/Andrea
The Spanish Tragedy - ideas
Love “tokens” - Bel-I’s scarf given to Horatio when he returns it from Andrea
Betraying figure (Pedringano - B-I’s watchman)
Overarching manipulator (Lorenzo)
False props (bottle with pedringango’s pardon)
Large amounts of Spanish/Latin/French - educated audience?
Language of battle in love
The Spanish Tragedy - critics
Pollard - revenge often exceeds first wrongdoing and creates new victims; foreign setting chosen to deal with engagement in political issues and intense emotions; maximum pity gained by having characters v close to each other.
The Spanish Tragedy - QUOTES
B-I’s scarf: “now wear thou it for both him and me” - represents revenge?
Lorenzo, on discovering B-I’s love for Horatio: “where words prevail not, violence prevails”
B-I’s agency in wooing: “I dart this kiss at thee”
Revenge - framing device(?) - “thou talkest of harvest when the corn is green”
Hieronimo as judge: “for blood with blood shall, whilst I sit as judge,/ be satisfied”
Hieronimo on play: “the plot is laid for dire revenge”
John Ford
Elusive life - collaborated with Middleton, Dekker, and Webster.
Key works - ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore - themes
Incest Rapacious physicality Love - platonic/sexual/as an illness Marriage - love vs suitability Masque/metatheatricality
’'’Tis pity she’s a whore” - critics
Hazlitt - Ford “decadent”
Foster - Ford reworks elements of city comedy within the tragic genre.
'’Tis pity she’s a whore - key characters
Giovanni (brother and lover of:) Annabella (newly married to:) Soranzo (the past lover of:) Hippolita Putana (annabella's woman) Vasques (soranzo's man)
'’Tis pity - key ideas
Letter in blood from anabella to Giovanni saying their secret is discovered
Shakespearean removal of donado’s eyeballs for telling secret of incest to soranzo’s man
Symbolism of Anabella’s ring
Gruesome mutilation of anabella’s pregnant body
'’Tis pity - key quotes
Giovanni - “one soul, one flesh, one heart, one all” - courtly address on his sister (but literal) - “nearness in birth or blood doth but persuade/ a nearer nearness in affection”
Hippolita - “revenge shall sweeten what my griefs have tasted”
Donado - “where’s the ring,/ that which your mother in her will bequeath’d / and charged you on her blessing not to give / to any but your husband?” A: “my brother in the morning took it from me”
John Webster
Collaborated with Dekker, Middleton, Marlowe; apprentice to Henslowe. Wrote the Lord Mayor’s show Monuments of Honour for the Merchant Taylor’s in 1624.
Key works - the white devil.
The white devil - key themes
- Wealth vs nobility
Court corruption
Infidelity/adultery/lust
Manipulative figure/agent of protagonist; female equivalent
Theatricality/disguise
Supernatural/ghost of Isabella & dream scenes
Set abroad in Italy - vittoria: “Venetian courtesan”
Image of the yew tree, corrupt blood.
The white devil - critics
Luckyj - not a simple revenge tragedy because revenges are implicated in the corrupt world. Flamineo a “tragic hero” or “comic manipulator”? Vittoria almost a “radical experiment”?
The white devil - key characters
Brachiano (corrupt duke married to Isabella, in love with:)
Vittoria (married to Camillo, sister of:)
Flamineo (who fakes love to:)
Zanche (woman of vittoria)
Cornelia (mother of flamineo and vittoria)
Francisco (brother of Isabella, uncle of Giovanni, the new young duke)
Monticelso - (judge/cardinal)
White devil - quotes
Brachiano wooing vittoria - “I’ll seat you above law and scandal”, allegorised as a “well-grown yew” in vittoria’s dream, “nay lower, you shall wear my jewel lower”. Vittoria characterised as a “counterfeit diamond”.
Isabella on rejection by B - “o that I were a man… I would whip some with scorpions” - “just anger” (dreams of torturing vittoria)
Monticelso to V: “were there a second paradise to loose/ this devil would betray it”. Flamineo - “o gold, what a god art thou”. V to B’s accusations of infidelity (discovering franciso’s letter) “what have I gained by thee but infamy?/ thou hast stained the spotless honour of my house”; on death - “my greatest sin lay in my blood/ now my blood pays for ‘t”
Fl: “we think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry”
Thomas Middleton
Prolific writer of masques and pageants. Rival of Jonson. Key works: the changeling, a Chaste Maid in Cheapside
The changeling - key themes
- COLLABORATIVE WORK WITH WILLIAM ROWLEY - links to the comic sub-plot! Household central (microcosm of the state), patriarchal hierarchy, love/lust, honour, appearance. Symbolism of dropping the glove (visualises rape); physical vs. Psychological appearance. Alchemy - Alesmero’s virginity potions.
The changeling - critics
Ricks - duality of meanings of words “blood, will, act, deed, service” - linked to Webster’s Vittoria.
Dutton - play is an “unblinking observation” of effects of lust/£/power.
Ribner - B-J is a “spiritual changeling”
Hibbard - distinguishing feature: “absence of the heroic” - no avenger needed for bj/de Flores because they do it for themselves
Changeling - key characters
Beatrice-Joanna (love of;) Alesmero (rival of:) Alonzo Deflores (man of b-j's father) Alibius (newly wed to Isabella) Antonio (disguised madman wooing Isabella); likewise Francisco. Diaphanta (bj's Maid)
Changeling - key quotes
Bj hating deflores: “you must stall a good presence with unnecessary blabbing” “this ominous ill-faced fellow more disturbs me/ than all my other passions”. D on dropped glove she rejects because he has touched “I should thrust my fingers/ into her sockets here”; “claim so much man in me” (bj wanting to kill Alonzo). Bj - “there’s horror in my service, blood and danger”, “how lovely now dost thou appear to me!”. Francisco to Isabella “this shape of folly shrouds your dearest love”. Bj on A’s ring finger “'’tis the first token my father made me send him”
“And I made him send it back again” now the two “engaged so jointly”. D: “if I enjoy thee not, thou ne’er enjoy’st;/ I’ll blast hopes and joys of marriage.” Bj to alesmero on discovery of all: “I have kissed poison for’t, stroked a serpent”; “mine honour fell with him, and now my life”
'’Tis pity - heart quotes
Soranzo after finding out Annabella’s pregnancy: “I’ll rip up thy heart” (to find out the father) and “in this piece of flesh… had I lain up/ all the treasures of my heart!”
Giovanni - appearing with heart - “I digged for food”; “'’tis a heart… in which is mine entombed” (heart as vessel of love)
